Mostly Austin. Mostly transportation. Mostly bile.

Council announcements

Not sure if it's a typo, but Robin Cravey, who I could support with reservations (given Zilker activities), and Laura Morrison, who I absolutelycould not, given her destruction of the political capital of OWANA that the previous leadership worked so hard to build, and of course, years of ANC shenanigans culminating in the McMansion and VMU opt-out spasm, have apparently both just announced for Place 4, and are both using Threadgills for their petition kickoffs, albeit on adjoining days.

Please, every reader of this blog, if it turns out they're running against each other, remember: we can't afford to have a neighborhood-pandering obstructionist sitting at the Council.

I don't have a site for Morrison's campaign (email didn't have a link), but oddly enough, the current ANC president (Danette Chimenti, who like Morrison is a McMansion activist with a big honkin' expensive house) used these words to endorse her:

Laura did so much for ANC in her two years as President; by reaching out to neighborhoods and leaders all over Austin, and providing unifying, informed leadership she is responsible for ANC achieving the high level of respectability and credibility it has today.

which is amazing, given the ANC's recent record of striking out on essentially everything except McMansion and CWS. The current city council, at least, clearly has far less respect for the ANC than they did even a couple of years ago. I don't know if Chimenti actually expects us to believe this, but it's laughable.

I would be wary of Cid. During the time he was creating his centers plan, he also made some rumblings that bus was better than rail to connect them. He also opposed streetcars not because of their operation, but because of the overhead wires and their visual impact.

Laura Morrision would be a disaster on the City Council. As OWANA leader, Morrison tried to shut down the Mean-Eyed Cat even though it is across two major arterials from any OWANA homes and never received any complaints.

Cid voted for the re-zoning to keep the Cat in business so I'd support him (or Cravey) over her in a heartbeat. Electing Laura Morrision would be like electing Jeff Jack in a skirt.

Personally I am extremely wary of Cid, I think he's looking at this as the next step in a larger plan and is probably to developer friendly for my likes. I mean he's a nice guy, but I think he sometimes acts before thinking through everything. I mean look at the city plan he tried to push without anyone else backing him.